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AUTHOR: 


SKIDMORE,  SYDNEY! 


TITLE: 


SCIENTIFIC  IDEALISM 


PLACE: 


PHILADELPHIA 


DA  TE : 


1909 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

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Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


1 108 
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Skidnore,  Gy»Inoy  7 

Sciontific  idoalisn  ^by^  Sydney  T.  Skidraore 
Philadolphia,  1900, 

14  p. 


23  OM  in  C&3:  cm. 


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SCIENTIFIC    IDEALISM 


Sydney  T.  Skidmore,  Sc.  D, 


r 


SCHOOLMEN'S    CLUB 


II 


PHILADELPHIA 


1909 


•      » 


V. 


/■ 


»  /. 


SCIENTIFIC  IDEALISM 


A  Paper  Read  at  the  Philadelphia  Schoolmen's  Club 

December  6,  J908 


" 


It  has  occurred  to  me,  since  a  variety  of  interesting 
matters  are  discussed  in  the  Schoolmen's  Club  from  time  to 
time,  that  it  would  not  be  inappropriate  on  one  evening  to 
direct  attention  to  some  developing  aspects  of  philosophy 
which  have  not,  as  yet,  been  generally  discussed  and  there- 
fore are  not  broadly  understood.  Only  those  whose  atten- 
tive interest  is  fixed  on  the  matter  realize  the  transfiguration 
of  the  world's  basic  thinking  while  it  is  in  progress.  It  is 
too  silent,  gradual,  and  all  surrounding,  to  be  appreciated  or 
even  perceived.  It  is  like  a  flower,  evident  to  all  when  in 
bloom,  while  the  process  of  blooming  is  imperceptible. 

The  splendid  researches  in  ultra  physics  during  the  past 
quarter  century  which  must  forever  glorify  the  names  of 
Crooks,  Hertz,  Lodge,  Becquerel,  J.  J.  Thompson,  the  Curies, 
with  two  or  three  score  ardent  coadjutors,  and  backed  by  the 
previous  projections  of  Faraday,  Kelvin,  Maxwell,  Helmholtz, 
et  al.,  are  reconstructing  the  sciences  of  physics  and  chem- 
istry, and  they  are  doing  vastly  more  than  that,  for  they  are 
leaving  the  former  limitations  and  ultimates  of  speculative 
philosophy  far  afield,  while  sending  a  strong  searchlight  for- 
ward into  realms  of  hitherto  intellectual  shadow  and  trans- 
fusing with  new  illumination  an  ancient  doctrine  that  has 
long  stood  among  the  vagaries  of  that  gloom. 

This  has  been  the  result  of  special  method  and  insistent 
quest.  Their  course  has  been  directly  opposite  to  that  of 
the  pragmatist.  They  have  dealt  with  matter  and  material 
phenomena,  but,  being  confronted  by  these,  they  have  not 


w  -- 


5 


inquired,  What  are  you  good  for,  or  whither  tending?  Their 
incessant  questioning  has  been,  What  art  thou?  From  what 
unknown  elements  of  being  do  you  come?  To  what  unre- 
vealed  antecedent  are  you  related? 

With  refined  devices  and  exquisite  ingenuity  they  have 
racked  the  witnesses  and  compelled  them  to  yield  their 
secrets.  The  unvarying  trend  has  been  towards  the  occult 
and  supersensible;  otherwise  this  paper  would  be  without 
logical  substance.  It  may  be  aptly  described  as  a  process  of 
discamation;  an  apothesis  of  matter.  As  Mr.  Balfour  said 
some  time  ago:  ** Matter  is  being  explained  by  explaining  it 
away.''  Speculative  idealism  is  almost  as  old  as  the  world, 
but  scientific  idealism  is  of  our  own  time,  and  still  so  young 
that  it  has  hardly  as  yet  learned  to  talk  or  formed  its  vo- 
cabulary. 

We  have  practically  reached  the  genesis  of  matter — 
its  quid,  although  its  quomodo  may  be  long  delayed,  and, 
without  leaving  the  lines,  the  course  is  still  onward  towards 
the  genesis  of  thought.  From  body,  a  sensible  unit  of  mat- 
ter, knowledge  has  extended  until  it  comprehended  the  mole- 
cule, a  subsensible  unit  of  matter;  thence  to  the  atom,  a 
rationalized  quantitative  unit  containing  only  the  potentiality 
of  matter,  and  now  the  atom  has  been  resolved  into  electrons, 
which  are  purely  focal  points  of  energy,  with  the  still  more 
subtle  energy  components  of  radiancy  yet  to  be  apprehended. 
Beyond  the  realm  of  sense,  matter  is  both  actually  and 
potentially  non-existent,  and  there  is  nothing  out  of  which 
materialism  can  construct  a  valid  title  to  philosophy,  while 
in  philosophy  the  effort  should  be  continually  to  eliminate 
or  correct  the  mistakes  and  delusions  that  materialism  injects 
into  it. 

The  work  of  ultra  physicists  arrests  attention  because  it 
is  with  US;  it  is  in  the  mental  air;  but  it  is  only  the  present 
part  and  grandest  culmination  as  yet  of  what  has  been  going 
on  for  a  long  time.  One  of  the  most  interesting  things  to 
note  in  the  history  of  science  has  been  the  passing,  one  after 
another,  of  the  *' subtle  fluids.''     Everything  when  followed 


* 


k ) 


beyond  the  verges  of  material  recognition  has  been  conceived 
to  be  a  ^'subtle  fluid."  Such  was  the  soul  of  man ;  the  spirits 
in  bodies  with  which  the  alchemists  wrestled;  the  phlogiston 
of  Stahl ;  the  corpusculum  of  Newton ;  the  electricity  of  Sym- 
mer  and  Franklin;  and  the  ether  of  Huygens.  The  '* subtle 
fluid"  in  each  case  was  but  the  materialistic  clasp  with  which 
the  tentacles  of  the  human  mind  comprehended  the  thing. 
They  were  not  subtle  fluids  at  all;  they  are  now  known  to 
be  energy  modalities,  and  the  consummating  stroke  is  the 
resolving  of  the  atom  to  the  electron,  likewise  an  energy  mode. 
With  the  resolution  of  all  things  to  focal  points  of  energy 
thought  draws  nearer  to  the  ultimate  genesis  and  the  human 
mind  effects  a  close  cognized  juncturing  with  its  universal 
self. 

Energy  is  one  of  the  names  that  we  give  to  the  Absolute 
or  Unconditioned.  *'The  fool  has  said  in  his  heart,  'There 
is  no  God,'  "  and  the  fool  philosopher  has  said  in  his  book 
''There  is  no  Absolute."  But  there  is,  and  as  that  Absolute 
reacts  upon  our  minds  or  feelings  in  different  ways  we  give 
to  it  different  names.  Taking  this  up  somewhat  in  detail, 
thought  reverts  to  the  old,  old,  mysterious  attractions  of 
gravitation,  electricity  and  magnetism.  These  must  ever  be 
explained  in  accordance  with  the  philosophical  basis  of  the 
age,  and  its  fundamental  concepts  of  being.  This  has  mostly 
been  that  of  a  discontinuity  universe ;  a  jumble  of  separately 
distinct  entities;  mind,  matter,  creature,  creator,  space  and 
time,  which,  energically  endowed,  react  on  each  other  and 
hence  arises  all  things. 

Out  of  such  a  philosophy  but  one  explanation  could  come. 
Whenever  two  bodies  are  mutually  affected  by  gravitation, 
electricity,  or  magnetism,  they  manifest  either  an  attraction 
or  aversion  for  each  other.  They  therefore  must  exert  a  force 
on  each  other  across  the  intervening  space;  but  action  at  a 
distance  is  disallowed  by  all  known  laws  and  modes  of  force 
and  so,  philosophical  discontinuity  and  mechanical  logic  have 
stood  facing  each  other  at  antagonistic  gaze  and  with  mutual 
astonishment,  like  the  two  Dromios.     This  and  myriads  of 


paradoxes  become  cleaned  out  of  the  mental  sky  when  the 
materialistic  attempt  to  explain  being  by  rationalizing  the 
combines  and  interdependencies  of  sensation  products  is 
abandoned  and  thinking  follows  the  lines  of  scientific  idealism 
to  their  inevitable  focus  in  a  single  universal  entity  which  is 
the  sole  substance  of  all  things. 

This  substance  evolves  in  ideas  and  such  evolving  i» 
creation.  Creation  is  exclusively  a  mental  and  not  at  all  a 
materialistic  process.  This  truth  is  generally  ignored  or  lost 
from  sight,  although  it  is  distinctly  affirmed  in  the  second 
chapter  of  Genesis.  ''These  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  made  the  earth 
and  the  heavens  and  every  plant  of  the  field  before  it  was  in 
the  earth  and  every  herb  of  the  field  before  it  grew.''  In 
creation  the  primal  substance  eventuates  in  Ideas  and  Ideas 
are  the  real  things.  They  are  the  eternal  verities.  Only 
such  ideas  as  are  sensed  become  invested  with  that  sense  garb 
which  we  call  matter,  and  when,  in  pure  intellectual  vision, 
matter  is  pursued  beyond  the  limits  and  constructions  of 
sensation,  as  is  being  done  at  present  by  the  ultra  physicists, 
its  materiality  sloughs  off  and  vanishes. 

Furthermore  as  to  the  primal  Entity.  Our  first  concept 
of  it  is  that  of  AUness,  but  by  reason  of  human  limitations 
we  are  not  able  to  bring  this  pure  conception  to  a  true  birth. 
Instead  of  that,  it  issues  from  the  womb  of  thought  as  a  mon- 
grel litter.  To  us  the  Allness  appears  not  simple,  but  of 
different  kinds  and  so,  from  the  nature  of  our  apprehen- 
sion, an  artificial  order  of  differences  appears,  which  does 
not  exist  in  the  thing  itself.  In  this,  as  in  everything  else, 
the  purity  of  the  concept  is  dependent  on  the  extent  to  which 
these  differences  can  be  correlated  or  subdued.  To  clarify  a 
muddy  flux  of  variant  facts  and  confused  thoughts  to  a 
transparent  principle,  clear  as  crystal,  is  ever  and  always  the 
supremest  effort  and  the  supremest  triumph  of  mind. 

The  different  kinds  of  Allness  are  somewhat  differently 
apprehended  and  phrased  by  the  religionist  and  by  the  phil- 
osopher, and  parenthetically  it  may  be  well  to  say  that  I 


tmderstand  a  religionist  to  be  one  who  contemplates  his  in- 
dividual relations  and  those  of  his  kind  to  the  Entity,  and  a 
philosopher  is  he  who  contemplates  the  Entity  itself  as  un- 
affected by  such  relations.  To  the  religionist  in  whatsoever 
way  apprehended,  it  is  God.  To  the  scientific  idealist  in 
whatsoever  way  apprehended,  it  is  Mind.  The  differences  of 
the  Allness  which,  in  philosophy  as  I  have  stated,  are  only 
differences  of  mental  mode  in  ourselves  and  do  not  exist  be- 
yond the  limits  of  our  own  thinking,  the  religionist  con- 
strues as  attributes  pertaining  to  the  entity  itself  and  sees, 
in  the  universal,  that  reflection  of  himself  which  makes  for 
personality  there  and  a  discontinuity  universe  everywhere. 
To  avoid  as  much  as  possible  the  verbal  wrangle  that  must 
ensue  when  a  single  term  is  applied  to  the  same  thing  as  seen 
from  different  view-points,  the  terminology  has  been  hap- 
pily made  somewhat  different  in  theology  and  philosophy. 

To  particularize  somewhat: — There  is  an  allness  of 
Duration,  In  theology  this  is  Etemescence,  in  philosophy 
Persistence.  There  is  an  allness  of  Efficiency.  In  theology 
this  is  Omnipotence,  in  philosophy  it  is  Energy.  There  is  an 
allness  of  Imminence.  In  theology  this  is  Omnipresence,  in 
philosophy  it  is  provisionally  called  Ether.  There  is  an  all- 
ness of  Knowledge.  In  theology  this  is  Omniscience,  in  phil- 
osophy the  same  term.  There  is  an  allness  of  Knowing  or 
wisting.  In  theology  this  is  also  Omniscience,  in  philosophy 
it  is  Consciousness. 

These  are  some  of  the  undifferentiated  evolutes  or  ideas 
of  primal  substance  and  they  engage  our  thinking  because  we 
differentiate  them  in  our  finite  apprehendings  of  them.  And 
such  apprehendings  establish  directions  which  extend  far  be- 
yond vision  or  ken.  We  have  another  set  of  terms  which 
apply  to  these  finite  apprehendings.  We  divide  persistence  into 
finite  units  and  to  so  much  of  the  series  as  we  cognize  we 
apply  the  term  time.  It  takes  the  form  of  a  series  or  suc- 
cession because  two  finites  cannot  co-exist;  they  would  in- 
stantly slip  from  their  limits  into  infinity.  Likewise,  if  I 
may  be  allowed  to  coin  a  word,  we  finitize  Energy.     We  fix 


'm-^ 


HI 


Ill 


8 

it  within  resistive  limits  and  then  name  it  force  We  finitize 
Ether  and  it  becomes  to  us  quantity,  form  and  place.  We  fin- 
itize Consciousness  and  it  becomes  personality.  Generically 
we  finitize  Mind  and  it  becomes  the  psychic  organon,  the  hu- 
man mmd.  Now  these  finitized  excerpts  of  universal  ideas 
VIZ. :  time,  force,  quantity,  form,  locus,  pereonality  and  psyche' 
are  all  contained  in  human  being  and  so  it  becomes  affirmed 
that  that  bemg  in  its  ultimate  elements  is  a  finitized  image  or 
likeness  of  the  Universal  Entity. 

Such  is  the  idealistic  frame  or  setting  of  the  leads  of 
science.  Can  it  be  supposed  that  having  attained  the  elec- 
tron with  the  Alpha  or  X-ray  emanation  still  unattained 
that  science  will  stop  with  either  of  those ;  or  that  it  will  stop' 
at  any  thmg  short  of  the  ultimate  limit  of  finiteness  t  To  this 
I  apply  the  term  "moment,"  because  we  have  no  other  term 
that  so  nearly  fits,  and  since  that  term  is  used  so  variously 
I  will  define  this  present  use  of  it.  It  is  a  point  in  the  blend 
of  Persistence,  Energy,  Ether,  Intelligence,  and  Conscious- 
ness :-A  pomt  in  the  blend  of  universal  ideation  or  Uni- 
versal Mind.  This  is  the  goal  of  science.  From  this  it  can 
synthesize  a  knowledge  of  the  vmiverse. 

One  of  the  foremost  subjects  in  the  science  of  the  future 
will  be  the  psyche.    That  there  shall  be  a  science  of  it  when 
science  shaU  have  resolved  sufficiently  the  secrets  of  general 
bemg  to  create  it  there  can  be  no  doubt.    At  present  we  have 
none     When  attained  it  will  not  be  by  the  method  of  the 
statistician;  a  vain  effort  to  distil  a  principle  from  an  impos- 
sible digest  of  innumerable  and  undigestible  facts:    Nor  yet 
that  of  the  pragmatist  who  seeks  the  parent  lode  by  following 
«ie  trail  of  sensuous  comforts  and  utilities  and  the  con- 
structive agencies  in  social  institutionalism.    It  will  not  be  by 
any  species  of  symptomology.     What  stranger  could  know  a 
place  by  makmg  a  category  at  a  distance,  of  the  various  roads 
that  lead  out  of  it  and  noting  that   one  is  sandy,   another 
rocky,  another  muddy,  one  straight,  another  crooked,  etc.,  or 
who  ever  discovered  the  baciUus  of  a  disease  from  symptoms  t 
If  known  at  aU  it  can  only  be  so  when  seen  directly  by  a 


:> 


4<|  > 
*  I* 


sufficiently  magnified  and  clarified  vision.     A  skilled  micro- 
scopist  does  not  see  it  by  looking  at  sick  people. 

The  special  moment  or  ultimate  unit  of  the  psyche,  science 
lias  not  yet  attained  and,  until  it  does  attain  it,  only  specu- 
lative lines  can  be  followed,  and  speculative  idealism  is  to 
scientific  idealism  what  the  preemption  of  territory  is  to  its 
subsequent  occupancy.  Whenever  at  any  particular  moment 
or  point  in  Universal  Mind  there  arises  the  ability  to  distin- 
guish itself  from  others,  to  differentiate  in  the  least  degree  the 
self  from  the  not  self,  there  is  the  birthing  of  personality; 
the  dawn  of  the  finitizing  psyche.  There  is  no  curdlijig  of 
nature  in  this ;  no  precipitation  of  essence,  only  a  cognizing  of 
Universal  ideas  in  a  limited  mode  and  these  cognizances  be- 
come the  elements  of  its  finite  being.  It  is  thus  that  it  ac- 
quires continuance,  time,  force,  form,  place,  knowledge,  and 
self -consciousness  all  from  itself. 

I  am  entirely  aware  that  to  many  what  I  have  just  stated 
must  seem  meaningless.  At  this  point  the  difficulty  of  in- 
telligible discussion  becomes  emormous  because  we  are  ac- 
customed, not  only  to  speak,  but  also  to  think  in  materialistic 
terms ;  in  terms  of  subject  and  predicate,  of  actor  and  actee. 
This  that  I  was  saying  becomes  intelligible  only  when  ideas 
stand  forth  in  the  mind  as  the  only  veritable  things  and  con- 
cretes are  merely  sense  derivatives  in  which  cause  and  effect 
are  factoring.  Ideas  do  not  belong  to  that  order  at  all.  They 
are  of  the  primal  substance,  self -originating  and  self -finitizing. 
They  are  not  consequent,  as  there  is  nothing  which  bears  to 
them  the  relation  of  antecedent.  It  may  be  noted  that  the 
psyche  has  the  same  genesis  in  all,  but  its  development  in 
different  ones  show  wide  differences  of  extensiveness.  Per- 
sonalities differ  because  of  unequal  rates  and  extent  of  growth 
in  their  different  orders  of  ideation.  They  get  their  appre- 
"hensiveness  from  the  original  psychic  moment  and  extend 
and  correlate  their  apprehendings  nearer  or  farther  in  dif- 
ferent cases  without  in  any  wise  setting  up  something  dif- 
ferent from  primal  substance.  Through  each  and  all  the 
Universal    Mind    maintains    unbroken    continuity,  incessant 


M«* 


N! 


10 

imminence.    This  is  what  I  understand  to  be  that  which  the 
philosophers  and  poets  of  the  Universal  endeavor  to  express 
Emerson,  whose  thought  lived  so  much  in  the  interrelation 
of  the  human  with  the  Universal  and  the  expression  of  the 
Universal  in  the  human,  is  unreadable  in  the  light  of  any 
other  understanding.     In  his  own  language: 
"Nothing  is  great  or  small 
To  the  Spirit  that  knoweth  all. 
And,  where  it  cometh,  all  things  are, 
And  it  Cometh  everywhere. ' ' 
The  aim  of  this  paper,  whether  attained  or  not,  has  been 
to  set  forth   one   indisputable  fact.      Science   is   endowing 
the  mystical  language  of  idealism  with  a  content  and  giving  to 
It  an  expressible  meaning.     It  is  doing  this  by  eliminating 
more  and  more,  from  human  understanding,  notions  of  a  dis- 
continuity universe  derived  from  sensoiy  interpretation   and 
by  creating  a  facility  of  rigid  thought  habit  in  the  realm  of 
the  supersensible.    There  was  not  the  faintest  response  from 
science  to  the  ideas  of  Plato  or  the  atoms  of  Lucretius,  but 
with  the  Ideas  of  Hegel  and  the  atoms  of  Dalton  science  is 
very  busy.    The  reason  is  that  the  former  were  far  away  ethe- 
rial  visions  that  unified  nothing,  the  latter  are  constructing 
fluxes  m  which  wide  diversities  of  impression  judgments  fuse 
and  flow  into  singleness.    Each  step  forward  in  science  un- 
covers a  new  set  of  more  subtle  and  widely  extended  sympa- 
thies which  have  been  latent  in  being  heretofore,  and  sympa- 
thy threads  the  lines  that  run  through  unity.    Science  is  with- 
drawing from  dream  and  establishing  in  reason  the  convic- 
tion that  we  are  finitized  portions  of  iUimitable  essence  and 
everythmg  pertaining  to  that  essence  is  potentially  present  in 
VB.    Development,  growth,  is  the  extension  of  consciousness  to- 
new  accessions  or  increments  of  the  hitherto  unclaimed  self. 
We  do  not  evolve  from  externality;  there  is  no  such  thing,  and 
that   mtellectualization   which  we   term   externality   evolves 
from  us.    This  is  idealism,  and  with  the  added  confirmatory 
trend  of  science  it  becomes  scientific  idealism.    It  stands  in 
perfect  contradiction  to  the  doctrines  that  mind  is  a  fabri- 


i 


>\ 


-A  r- 


II 

cated  product,  a  resultant  phenomenon,  a  brain  functioning, 
and  without  essential  substance  or,  at  most,  a  blank  impotent 
negation,  a  "tabula  rasa"  or  lantern  screen,  on  which  neu- 
rotic affection  projects  the  images  of  the  external  world  and 
elaborates  them  into  all  forms  of  mentation  products.  Such 
philosophizing,  aside  from  its  inadequacy,  is  a  genuine  spirit- 
ual obscurant,  and  from  its  fundamentals  of  being  can  only 
develop  a  cultus  that  is  thoroughly  sensuous.  It  is  easy  to 
teach,  easy  to  grasp,  and  so  its  evil  potencies  become  attractive. 
It  offers  to  its  devotee,  like  the  tempter  on  the  mount,  all  the 
kingdoms  of  knowledge  when  it  does  not  own  one  of  them. 
It  is  the  veritable  scarlet  woman  of  philosophy  who  has  de- 
filed the  courses  of  modem  thinking  and  perverted  modem 
education  with  her  abominations. 


DISCUSSIONS 

The  appended  discussion  followed  the  reading  of  the  pa- 
per. For  greater  exactness  the  points  or  questions,  by  re- 
quest, were  afterward  submitted  in  writing  and  the  answers 
are  either  such  as  were  given  at  the  time  or  are  deducible  from 
the  matter  in  the  paper.  The  ir.embers  who  participated  in 
the  discussion  were  Messrs.  Gideon,  Gerson,  Coulomb,  Ballen- 
tine,  Michener  and  Sayre. 

Will  philosophy  or  science  ever  he  able  to  determine  the  essence 
of  Mind  any  more  than  the  essence  of  God,  since  they  are  identical? 

No ;  to  determine  is  to  fix  limits,  and  philosophy  scientifically  guided 
can  never  seek  to  determine  Primal  Entity  because  it  posits  it  funda- 
mentally as  undeterminate — i.  e.,  without  limits. 

The  psychology  of  to-day  is  concerned  with  the  manifestations  rather 
than  the  essence  of  Mind.  What  will  he  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the 
new  psychology? 

All  psychology  must  have  concern  with  the  manifestations  of 
mind.  Psychic  theorists  differ  in  their  use  of  the  manifestations. 
Scientific  idealism  seeks  to  know  the  psyche  in  order  that  it  may 
interpret  the  manifestations;  empiricism  seeks  the  manifestations  in 
order  to  understand  the  psyche. 


*ti 


'A 


12 

Does  not  Scientific  Idealism  which  regards  everything  as  a  manifes- 
tation of  mind  require  the  acceptance  of  Pantheism,  since  it  regards 
Mind  and  God  as  identical? 

Pantheism  is  a  theological  term  of  wide  and  varied  significance. 
The  different  meanings  which  attach  to  it  are  contained  in  the  historic 
evolution  of  religious  beliefs.  It  is  not  a  reference  or  usable  term  in 
philosophy. 

Professor,  I  understood  you  to  speak  of  the  possibility  of  some  day 
discovering  or  getting  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  (methods  of  operation) 
of  7nind  from  this  ideal  point  of  view.  Would  you  he  willing  to  ven- 
ture a  prediction  as  to  the  method  or  means  by  which  such  knowledge 
might  come  or  be  brought  about? 

The  language  of  the  paper  evidently  did  not  fully  convey  my 
meaning.  In  current  psychology  too  much  emphasis  is  given  to  **law8 
of  mind/'  as  though  the  psyche,  like  a  solar  system,  works  mechani- 
cally in  ways  that  are  predetermined  and  can  be  formulated.  It  is 
determining  and  not  determined  in  its  modes;  if  it  has  laws,  they  are 
those  that  pertain  to  spontaneity.  It  is  resident  in  personality,  in 
which  it  is  limited,  finitized.  What  we  gain  apperceptively,  and  all 
that  we  gain  from  the  facts  of  personality,  is  a  knowledge  of  its 
boundary  limitations  and  not  a  knowledge  of  it.  This  latter  can  only 
come  when  the  focus  or  radiant  in  absolute  Mind  from  which  it  ex- 
tends is  apprehended.  Toward  this  the  course  of  Scientific  Idealism 
is  directed,  but  what  sequence  of  units  in  the  way  thereunto  must  first 
be  scientifically  clasped  or  as  to  when  or  how  the  initial  moment  of  the 
psyche  shall  be  attained  no  prediction  can  now  be  made. 


Later  on,  in  discussing  the  idea  of  ''Otherness'^  as  a  function- 
ing of  the  '* oneness'*  of  the  Absolute,  I  said:  *' Would  it  not  be  pos- 
sible to  think  of  this  otherness  as  being  in  a  way  comparable  to  the 
physicist's  theory  of  a  vortex  within  the  mass  of  a  fluid?  Such  a  vor- 
tex is  separate  and  marked  of  from  the  rest  of  the  fluid,  and  yet  is 
a  unit  with  it.** 

It  is  possible  and  proper  enough  to  employ  the  vortex  as  a  mode 
of  thought,  but  care  must  be  taken  to  preserve  it  as  a  similitude  and  not 
erect  it  into  a  tenet  or  a  fact.  The  subtle  fluids  have  passed.  They 
are  now  only  scientific  chestnuts,  and  of  course  the  vortex  had  to 
go  with  them.  Lord  Kelvin  was  about  the  last  one  of  great  thinkers 
to  hold  seriously  to  the  doctrine. 

Is  it  wise  or  even  possible  for  a  finite  mind  to  say  anything  for 
or  against  an  Absolute?  The  term  does  not  seem  to  connote  a  con- 
ceivable entity. 

Yes;  if  by  an  absolving  process  the  finite  mind  is  continually  ex- 
tending its  concepts,  it  is  possible  and  wise  to  reason  concerning  the 
ultimate  of  that  process.     Because  men  cannot  reduce  the  Infinite  to 


13 

finiteness,  they  are  not  forbidden  to  reverse  the  process, 
affirms  that  they  may  not  extend  to  the  Infinite. 

**Nor  see  the  genius  of  the  whole 


No  necessity 


Nor  see  the  gemus  of  the  whc 
Ascendant  in  the  private  soul. 


•I 


Does  not  the  being  of  an  Absolute  and  of  something  created  5y 
or  emanating  from  it  involve  a  contradiction  from  which  we  cannot 
mentally  escape? 

It  certainly  does  if  the  Absolute  appears  to  the  mind  as  an  author, 
artificer,  or  parent  from  which  the  issue  passes  into  separateness  or  with- 
drawn existence.  The  Absolute  consists,  it  does  not  exist;  there  is 
no  ex  to  it,  nor  does  existence  pertain  to  it  in  any  way;  through  All- 
ness  it  has  unbroken  continuity,  incessant  imminence ;  nothing  is  created 
by  it  or  emanates  from  it  that  is  separate  from  itself;  in  it  all  things 
**live  and  move  and  have  their  being.*' 

75  not  the  doctrine  of  this  paper  the  same  as  that  of  the  Eleatio8 
who  asserted  that  the  Universe  is  One  and  that  plurality  is  a  deception 
of  the  senses? 

Yes,  as  to  the  first  clause  very  similar,  but  as  to  the  second  clause 
interpretation  is  necessary.  Much  turns  on  the  meaning  of  the  word 
** deception.*'  Because  the  primal  essence  of  the  Universe  is  unex- 
istent,  the  Eleatics  were  led  by  their  logic  to  deny  the  possibility  of 
existence.  Being  with  them  meant  only  essential  truth,  and  must  be 
affirmed  equally  by  all  tenses  of  the  verb  to  be,  all  phenomena,  all 
phase  as  merely  existent  was  consequently  non-being,  nothing.  Scien- 
tific Idealism  is  widely  different  from  this;  there  is  a  being  of  the 
real  and  likewise  a  being  of  the  seeming;  the  real  was,  is,  and  forever 
will  be,  immutable  truth;  the  seeming  was  not,  is  now,  and  will  not 
be*  it  is  not  Truth  because  discontinuous,  but  trueness  is  affirmed  of 
if  'in  virtue  of  its  present  being.  The  deception  of  the  senses  results 
from  substituting  for  Truth  that  which  is  merely  a  psychic  product  and 
a  cataclasm  in  logic  ensues  whenever  a  term  to  which  a  dual  meaning 
is  thus  attached  is  used  indiscriminately  in  constructive  reasoning. 

If  finitizing  began  when  the  Absolute  thought  of  self  and  other 
than  self,  was  there  a  division  of  the  Infinite  or  a  creation  of  the  finite? 
If  Infinity  divides  itself,  does  it  remain  infinite?  If  the  finite  was  a 
new  existence,  out  of  what  was  it  created?  Did  the  finite  exist  in  any 
sense  before  this  creative  act  of  the  Infinite?  If  so,  was  it  not  infinite 
and  finite  at  the  same  time?  If  absolutely  created,  was  it  not  some- 
thing and  nothing  at  the  same  time? 

Since  these  questions  are  somewhat  plicative  I  will  attempt  to 
answer  them  collectively.  With  the  Absolute  there  can  be  no  thought 
of  self  and  other  than  self;  such  thinking  belongs  only  to  the  finite. 
The  Absolute  is  not  divided  because  a  finitizing  process  occurs  in  it; 
it  cannot  fractionalize,  for  it  is  indivisable;   the  finite  is  not  created 


"t. 


14 

out  of  anything,  it  is  a  limiting  mode  of  that  which  abides  in  infinite 
Mind,  and  eternally  so  as  Idea.  If  we  reason  concerning  the  Absolute 
it  must  be  in  tenns  of  the  universal.  It  is  the  same  thing  in  philosophy 
that  infinity  is  in  mathematics;  one  involves  no  greater  or  lesser  de- 
parture from  rudimentary  modes  of  thought  derived  from  immediate 
experience  than  the  other,  yet  who  would  apply  the  same  quality  of 
test  to  mathematical  infinity  as  is  applied  to  philosophical  Absolute, 
or  how  far  could  mathematical  reasoning  extend  if  infinity  should  be 
dismissed  from  it  with  the  same  degree  of  contempt  as  is  the  Absolute 
by  pragmatic  writers  and  agnostics? 


/ 


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